Letter to the Editor: Clarifying voter ID laws

I appreciate the “Miami precincts have lowest voter turnout rates in county” article that Stella Powers wrote for the Oxford Free Press Oct. 25 print edition. Stella did a great job of interviewing election officials and organizations such as mine, League of Women Voters of Oxford, to discern many of the reasons for low voter turnout in the precincts cited.

However, the information that I provided was truncated a bit, so it doesn’t accurately convey Ohio voter ID laws. It’s critically important that voters understand what identification is valid for both the registration and voting process. The statements in the article would be correct if the information in the following two sentences included the italicized information that I’ve added:

“As of January 2023, people are unable to vote in Ohio without a state ID, a US passport or a military/veterans ID.”

“Students who come to Miami from out of state usually have out of state drivers licenses, and the new voter ID laws will not allow them to register online, so they have to use a paper voter registration form.”

Thanks to the OFP for the great election coverage! We appreciate you.

Kathie Brinkman

Co-President for Organization

League of Women Voters of Oxford 

Editor's note: The original story was updated online to clarify which types of identification voters can use to vote in-person in Ohio, as well as the process to vote without a state license.